


in my shaking hands.

by clarkelance



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Adopted Children, Alternate Universe, Angst, F/F, clarke gets soft, lexa learns how to take care of infants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-08 05:48:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15924149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarkelance/pseuds/clarkelance
Summary: when clarke ends up in polis, her journey of self reflection becomes affected by lexa's. together, they learn to accept the past and forge a future.





	in my shaking hands.

**Author's Note:**

> the first chapter was initially written as an exchange between myself and a friend, apologies if it's a little hard to follow — it's not formatted the usual way it would be for a fic, the rest will be different. each charcter has a different pov, but it will mostly switch to lexa's later on. it's also worth mentioning that to me, lexa's english skills aren't perfect (as she speaks all 12 clan languages as well), so she doesn't speak as fluidly as she does on the show.
> 
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> also, it's lowercase and might stay that way.

 

 

 

* * *

**intro:** i thought it was worth explaining that this scene takes place in 3x02, just after clarke gets the knife from roan. lexa shows up as clarke asked, but instead of coming alone, she arrives with an orphaned nightblood found on the journey back to polis. lexa's emotions get the better of her, and she takes the child in instead of relinquishing her to titus. 

 

* * *

 

 

**hurt**  is one of those words that can be anything: a noun. a verb. an adjective. i am  _hurt_. i  _hurt_. i feel  _hurt_. and that can be easy to misconstrue – it’s a miracle that she feels anything, but she feels like those green eyes are just carving out a pit in her stomach and plucking every healed stitch she’s tried to press against her back. (the problem with her back is she can’t reach it, the same way she can’t prise out the pain straight from the source. i am the source. i hurt.)

                  – she’s thought about this moment. thought about the way her blade dips beneath the cover of her sleeve and the way the commander would stare back at her, or the way this would be her last move and – and how she’s okay with that. ( _i’m not afraid to die. i deserve it_.) if it happens – she’s been gone long enough now that her absence back at camp isn’t noted  – they probably think she’s dead already. she should be. so if it happens… she can handle a little more pain.

                                                         _i hate her,_ is the overwhelming  rage that gouges at her stomach now. her heart’s beating too fast when she approaches the throne room – too fast and too hard and she thinks she’s going to be sick – thinks she’s going to stop breathing. she doesn’t want to come face to face with her, and that’s a terrifying realisation that settles in her stomach. she’s not afraid of the commander. she’s not afraid of the kind of coward that – … that caused all this, but – there’s something there she doesn’t know.

                       she’s greeted with lexa. but in her arms, there’s a –

                                                                oh.

she’s frozen. stares. her mouth opens, ready to show lexa exactly what she’s missed in the past three months, and exactly what she’s turned her into, but there’s –  _what the hell is going on?_

 

>   
> 

**‘— what the hell is that?’**

 

* * *

 

 

**i made this choice with my head and not my heart.** the sincerity had been lost in the heat of battle, buried beneath betrayal she had hoped would not come. it had, far too quickly, at the detriment of more than their shared companionship. still, the sting of that had affected her more than all that had come before and after, a lasting wound that had not healed, as open and festering as each come before it. wanheda   **—** _clarke_ — was safe from harm in her tower, yet none were more aware of how unpleasant the arrangement was for the aforementioned. 

    she had not scoured her cheek until nightfall, when her bath had been drawn, hand removing the last vestiges of clarke’s displeasure. though it had surprised leksa, an outburst had been earned. hate was a limitless, burning emotion  **—**  one she knew well, and could not display in the same way as the sky woman had. her rage burned quiet, unable to be released.  her command called for duty, negotiation, not personal retribution… or interest.    a commander was meant to be alone.

  those teachings had fallen away the further from polis war had taken her, the more clarke’s determination had taken root in her and inspired something _more_. the hitch in progression had come, and it could only be continued with aid. whether or not that would come from the woman in her care was another mountain to climb. agreeing to an audience had not been something the commander had anticipated, yet the announcement of clarke’s entrance still felt hopeful.

    against her chest lay a slumbering girl, tucked into her cloak with a piece of cloth fashioned to affix an infant to the body. a few choice teachings on her care had come from the healers that frequented her tower, knowing that leksa’s silence was due to inexperience. few natblida children arrived so early, even fewer were given to the commander on a return home from war. in a time of emotional turmoil, she had taken the babe into her own care, preferring to stay immersed in the simplicity of feeding, changing and bathing    **—** even if it was accompanied by a lack of sleep. 

  clarke looked as tired as she felt. tension seemed to fill the room as she entered, turning to surprise as they grew close enough to note further details. evidently, the other woman was more troubled by the sight of her than she was in return. 

 

 

>  

   “ she is a  **child** , clarke. “  undoubtedly, the fairer haired woman must have seen a baby before    **—**    leksa still recalled the way children had been mentioned in terms of those inside the mountain. her tone was kept low in an attempt to keep the girl asleep, knowing her squalling would not cease if she was woken.   “ she is resting. ”

 

* * *

 

 

           she always thought people were lying when they said when one door closes, another opens. it was always just something that people said. life works in cycles. three hundred people in a fallout bunker burn alive from the inside out, but a baby’s born, an eight hour walk away. anything good left inside her dies, but the rest of her people can live. that’s how she’s rationalising it – it still grows malignantly in her head, and still sits heavy and wrenching across the scape of her back (her shoulders are  _tired_. everything about her is  **tired**. but her eyes close and her mind races. she sees the faces. the burns. the scars and bodies and the squeezing of her heart that she still can’t escape when the night draws in and the only light is the moon or a candle that niylah hadn’t blown out yet. 

she was ready – as ready as she could be. she doesn’t know how long’s passed – time works in strange ways when there’s nothing but an empty gun in the waistband of her pants and a blunt knife in the other hand. wanheda is prey, to them. game. all she does is bring death. pain. hurt. anguish. she’s been that for a while – since they landed on the ground, and since the grounders attacked and speared jasper through the sternum. she was ready for lexa – a blade sits high in the sleeve of her forearm and she can feel the flat of the blade against her wrist. (she’s prepared to use it – has been thinking this for a while. blood must have blood. and all this blood was spilled because of the decisions lexa made.)

it’s the baby that throws her. she stills for a moment – a hitch of her breath catches in the back of her throat. (there’s the tightness again. there’s a moment where she thinks she’s going to break down into tears – a moment that passes with a deep breath and the knowledge that she can’t give her that – can’t let her see that. or clarke’ll only have to prepare herself again to slice the knife across her throat.) this is their heda – wrapped with a baby in swaddling cloths and keeping her voice down.

            ‘— why?’     – a question that she’s been asking for the past four months.  _why did you do that. why did you leave. why is there a baby in your arms. why you. why did you have to kiss me. why did you betray me. why_. (it was always  **them**. no one else could understand what it was like to watch a village burn from far enough away, and no one else would make the sacrifices they did. she found solace in that –  _lexa_. having her there. being the same. leadership is lonely.)  


 

 

>  

                                  ‘–  _why_ , lexa?’    (it’s quieter, now. the first was for the baby – why is she here? why do you have her? – who would leave lexa in charge of a child? – but her voice cracks, and she swallows the rising lump in her throat and blinks too quickly to cast away the tears.)

 

* * *

 

 

            the upset in clarke’s expression seemed to carry some permanence now, whether it was her entrance, reports from those who had tended to her afterwards, or now    watching as multiple emotions crossed over her features. anger was familiar, she often found it hiding behind the the niceties of her council, of faces among the crowd. compared to others, this was too personal. clarke was angry with the woman behind the treaties, the title, as she had made the promise to join her in the fight for mount weather. the betrayal had not been one that expected, nor one she had come to terms with.

   _why?_    the question hung between them, not needing to be elaborated on. her initial explanation might have been enough for some, for those who understood the weight of her rule. what benefited her people was not what was always aligned with personal interest, now just as much as it when the choice had been between revenge, and allowing costia’s murderers to be welcomed back into her good graces. their commander had looked the other way, yet leksa had not. would clarke feel the same distaste as long as she did?   selfishly, she hoped not.

      there was one clear thing to address    the small girl tucked into her sash. they were not related, she would have no children, would never truly know a mother, a sister. anya had been the closest, and she too was out of reach, never to be seen again. she knew little of children this young, the warmth she brought made it difficult to turn her away.   “  _she is of my blood_. “  her fingertips touched the edge of the sling, gently enough not to stir. waking children was something leksa preferred not to do, having learned from experience. 

 

 

>   
> 

 they had both chosen different paths, different ways to cope with the immeasurable weight of leadership. clarke had run, a luxury she had never been afforded    but not one she could be blamed for. war was no simple undertaking, the sight of mass dead, the loss of loved ones, the physical toll wore down the strongest of warriors. still, they were two leaders on two opposing sides, and she could not first think of others over her own. her expression attempted indifference, knowing emotion could not sway the same as reason could.    “ my choice was to save my people, or step over their bodies to save yours. i did my duty. “

   her duty was bitter in comparison to what they had shared. regret had only ever been present twice in her rule, twice due to the complicated feelings she held for women in her world. twice, she had been made to choose what she had been  _taught_  to choose. the natblida were not given a choice. perhaps if they were, she would have chosen in a way that would have left clarke less upset with her. it didn’t take much to cave, to grow softer in the face of the grief she knew was present behind the blonde’s anger.     “ i did not want to hurt you. i _am_  sorry. “

 

* * *

 

 

**there are questions.** for the babe wrapped in lexa’s arms  –  asleep, for now, and surprisingly, with the way the anger boils just beneath the surface of clarke’s skin, just behind her eyes, just  _there_ , just an  **almost**   —   it’s almost out. it almost claws its way up her throat and out of her mouth with the same spiteful, split tongue that makes the inside of her mouth bleed. almost. there are questions for the child, and for  _lexa_. the commander. the alliance that now sits, torched in the space between them, spat at and condemned. this was never about being equal. this was never about them living side by side. lexa never wanted them to survive   –   it was a long game, a long and  _cruel_  and  **arduous**  way of rescinding any  _welcomes_  into any alliance.

 

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          ‘   —    that’s   —   that’s not  **good enough** , lexa.’      if it’d been a plan  –  a tactic  –  if what was bundled in lexa’s arms and wrapped tight across her chest was supposed to placate her for a moment, give her a level head, make her  _consider_  before she draws out the knife from inside the cuff at her wrist, then it was working. cheap, and wrenching, and though it might make her careful before she opens the commander’s neck in her own chambers, it crushes something else within her. it’s manipulative, and that’s the only word she can come up with right now. everything’s too fast. everything happens, and everything seems to make her eyes flicker from the commander to the child to – anything else in the room, because now it feels like she can’t breathe and she can’t think and she can’t do anything and it’s —

                              ‘you  _left_ , lexa   —-  ’       you  _left_  and i  **killed them all**. commander of death. i don’t want to be this way. i don’t want to be this person. i don’t want any of this, i never wanted any of this. and it’s all  _you_.  _you did this. you hurt those people too_.

              ‘i   –   i  ** _hate you_.** ’              there’d been words she’d been meaning to say. there’d been the constant upheaval of anger and hurt and guilt and regret. it came out the way she bled: it ebbed, and pressed, and no matter how much pressure she applied to it, it kept on coming, and spilling and  —  it covers her hands, and she can’t tell anymore if the anger or blood is hers or lexa’s.  


                                         ‘i  _ **hate**_  you. i  **hate you**.’      at least there’s one thing she knows, and one thing that spills from between her lips as she takes that step back toward her and stares up. she never knew what lexa was thinking. she never knew, however many times she’d look over, what was going on in there. but now, all she knows is that if lexa put her to death, it’d be a peace offering.  _kill yourself or put me out of my misery_.  


                       ‘ _go float yourself_. now let me go, before i do something you’ll regret.’


End file.
